Monday, February 18, 2008

typewriters writing

This is the only typewriter repair shop I have ever come across. I've often considered where I might go for parts should our trusty Olympia come up missing some letters in its alphabet. Now ,thanks to this little hole in the wall in Berkeley, I know. There's a lot of dust and a strong sense of cult in such places. While we're on the topic of text, I will take this moment to gush uncontrollably about Raymond Carver's short stories. I feel seven years late to the prom on this one, but so glad to have finally found the shoes I needed to get through the night. I understand that his stories are filled with daily grit and down on their luck characters, but the writing is so lovingly trimmed of fat and so casually surprising that it fills this reader with a joy previously unknown in fiction. Peacocks at dinner parties, unlucky birthday boys, blind men "seeing", champagne and donuts for breakfast...if gabriel garcia marquez created magical realism then raymond carver should get credit for gutteral magnetism. Skip breakfast or dessert and read his collection of short stories called" Cathedral." Do it. Do it now.